The Rhineland region of Germany has been blessed with beauty, history and a surfeit of the arts, making it a true tourist's delight in every sense of the word.

The next time you're at a party, ask the person sitting next to you to name tharre things he or she associates with Germany. Better still, try it yourself, and in all probailty you'll think of cars, beer, bsuty barmaids and products that never sem to fail.If you're a soccer fan, the World Cup will also figure in your list. Industrialisation, hard work, precison, tough times in the past, war crimes… Somehow, very few people will tell you that it's a beautiful country, rich in history and the fine arts, with a culture that goes back over a thousand years. Or that it has warm, fun loing people for whom a galss of beer isn't just a drink, but a divine experience, to be savoured slowly. Germany is all this and more. But if you're not visiting the country on business or to attend one of the many international trade fairs hosted in the country, you'd be best off making tracks to one of the country's most scenice regions - Rhineland.

The River Rhine begins in Switzerland and meanders across Germany, bestowing the bounty of natural beauty to every town and village on its banks. The Rhine has many towns, castles, forests and towers along it, but certain areas of the Western Region of the Rhine Valley are a little more blessed than the others. Cologne, for example has for many centuries been Germany's seat of education, thanks to the world famous Cologne University. Cologne, with its landmark cathedral spires, unusual museums, theatres and conert halls and pubs, is a bohemian city that beckons people from far and wide. The Cologne University is almost like a medeival township that houses over 54,000 students in its sprawling campus. With its Gothic structures and open spaces, the Cologne University is a haven of peace, perfectly suited to the pursuit of higher education. While students studty in its hallowed halls by day, the locals have the finest operatic and classical music performance top entretain them, courtesy the Cologne Opera and the cologne Philharmonic. Ciologne encouarges the casual vsitor to set a slow pace as he or she soaks in the ambience of this enchanting city. If you don't feel like seeing anything in oparticuklar, take a walk along tRhine River trhough the romantic old city. Or, if you'd rather see Cologne from a different angle.you can take a cruise on the Rhine, past the city.

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